[CR]Frame stiffness

(Example: Framebuilders:Bernard Carré)

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 09:07:01 -0800
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "Jan Heine" <heine@mindspring.com>
Subject: [CR]Frame stiffness

I know the topic has been beaten to death, and I know frame stiffness doesn't matter for normal riding. But the crank failure web site also had some interesting results on frame stiffness:

http://technology.open.ac.uk/materials/bikeframes/bikeframe.html

Especially the following conclusions are interesting to this group:

3. The oversize aluminium frame (GT) was not as stiff as the bonded Alan frame that used much smaller tube sections.

5. A conventional 531 steel frame gave the third least deflection and was stiffer than almost all the modern frames, although considerably heavier.

The above really shows how much placebo effect is going on. Time and again, people have extolled on the lack of stiffness of Alans (I even thought I noticed it on mine!), how oversize aluminum frames may be uncomfortable, but at least they are stiff, etc.

In the end, more than anything, the results show that stiffness doesn't matter. And because it doesn't matter, we are able to believe what we want to believe about stiffness.

Jan Heine, Seattle